Retro Revisited: Rainbow Islands (ZX Spectrum)

The ZX Spectrum was one of the greatest 8-bit micros of the day and, along with the C64, was one of the predominant 8-bit gaming platform in the UK during the ’80s and ’90s. With any popular platform, publishers were always looking to increase software sales and one of the most popular and lucrative genres was the arcade conversion. Coders often had the unenviable task of trying to bring the best and brightest games from the arcades into people’s homes with, converting them to work on much more primitive hardware.

One of the biggest and most popular arcade games of the late ’80s was Taito’s Rainbow Islands, a sequel to their hugely popular Bubble Bobble game and smash hit in it’s own right. This was a game that, with it’s bold graphics, addictive gameplay and family-friendly appeal, seemed like the perfect title to bring to home systems. Whilst console conversions were handled by a range of studios, the majority of ports for both 8-bit and 16-bit computers so popular in UK and European markets, were handled by Graftgold. The Amiga conversion is widely regarded as one of the finest games to grace the system, as was the Commodore 64 version, both of which I’ve played previously and are mightily impressive.

Less familiar was I, however, with the ZX Spectrum version. I must confess that when I chose to play and review the conversion for ZX Spectrum, my hopes weren’t high. In fact, I’d deliberately chosen this version, mainly because I’d expected it to be lacking. You must understand that this wasn’t in any way an attempt to poke fun at the Speccy, merely that the machine’s quirks and limitations would have presented Graftgold with a huge number of technical and stylistic hurdles to overcome, things that really wouldn’t have been a problem for more powerful machines of the day. The arcade version boasts fast, fluid gameplay, large numbers of on-screen sprites, as well as game mechanics that require the ability to display certain colours on-screen. With it’s restrictions on colour, lack of hardware sprites and scrolling, surely this could never work properly a Spectrum, could it?

I suspect that the Spectrum owners and fans amongst you currently reading this are feeling a sense of indignation at this know-nothing-Commodore-boy’s insinuation that the Speccy wasn’t up to the task – you already know the truth of the matter. The fact is, the Spectrum version is an amazing conversion – not perfect (more on this later) – but Graftgold really pulled out all the stops on this one.

Spectrum vs Arcade: closer than you might think!

I’ve recounted the game’s plot more times than I care to remember, but for anyone who still doesn’t know the background, Rainbow Islands is the sequel to Taito’s immensely popular arcade game, Bubble Bobble. Having freed themselves from the curse that turned them into bubble dragons, Bubby and Bobby set out on a new quest to rescue their friends and family from the evil ‘Prince of Darkness’, the one that caused all this trouble in the first place. The two heroes must liberate each of the Rainbow Islands and reclaim the magical rainbow gems to save the day.

Each island is divided into a number of different themed stages, each inhabited by various enemies. Instead of being confined to a single, static screen, Rainbow Islands now presents the player with levels that scroll vertically, making each level much more challenging and engaging than it’s predecessor.

Whereas the previous game focused on trapping foes within bubbles and bursting them, Taito came up with a new mechanic for this sequel. Bub and Bob have magical abilities that allow them to create special rainbows that will eliminate enemies when hit. Not just a weapon, the ‘bows can also be walked over, forming ad hoc platforms to reach the top of the level. As you might expect, rainbows are quite fragile things, collapsing in a shower of multi-coloured dust if jumped on – holding the jump button down will allow you to bounce off a rainbow without breaking it, but it will still break if you land on one and you’re let go of the button.

The boss of Insect Island

The principle objective of each island is to collect a full set of rainbow gems before coming face to face with the island’s respective boss. In order to acquire gems, the player must kill a monster with a falling rainbow, which involves casting a rainbow over their head and jumping on it. The monster’s corpse will somersault into the air, leaving a coloured gem where it finally lands.

Whilst it’s possible to collect all the required gems this way, the true ending of the game can only be revealed by collecting each of the gems in correct order of colour, starting with red and ending in purple. This is one of the subtleties of the game that not many gamers realise and one of the hidden depths that Taito would add to their games to make them more challenging. Imagine that the game screen is divided into a grid from left to right and that an enemy’s body needs to land within the correct ‘cell’ – watch the included video and you’ll get the idea – in order to produce a gem of the correct colour. This means that players can’t simply blast their way through game else they’ll waste opportunities to collect the gems; this is a game as much about timing and strategy as much as platforming.

On to my impressions of the Spectrum version then, and it really is a masterful creation. I chose to use the disk version of the game, mainly to do away with the hassle of any tape loaders, and I was pleased to see that all of seven of the main islands made it into the game. The arcade version does include an additional set of ‘secret’ islands that are only unlocked by collecting gems in the right order, but none of the home conversions (at least none by Graftgold) have ever included these, so things are consistent in that respect. Even without the bonus islands, this remains a large and challenging game, definitely worth the full retail price at the time (£9.99 tape and £14.99 on disk).

Colour clash can be a problem

Most importantly, the mechanics of the arcade version make it through into the Spectrum version in their entirety, insofar as I could tell – I certainly didn’t feel like the experience was diluted in any way. Vertical scrolling in this game is generally quite smooth and responsive, although the game can slow down somewhat when the screen gets busy with multiple enemies and rainbows.

I was also pleased to note that most of the different power-ups from the arcade version also made it in. These include the usual red and yellow pots for upgrading the length and speed of your rainbows, star-bursts, and even the screen-clearing thunder-chalice.

If you were a 128K owner, you’d also be treated to some excellent in-game music and effects, with the Speccy sound chip recreating a great little rendition of the game’s take on ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ that sounds even better than the C64 version.

Getting close to the end…

Unfortunately, a number of concessions and changes were required in order to translate the game on to the Spectrum, which I shall endeavour to cover.

There are a few nips and tucks that have been made to make sure that the base game could work on the 48K model. The big chest awarded at the end of each stage is absent, replaced by a cascade of enemy sprites that leave bonus items behind. The unique sounds present in the Doh’s Island level have also been cut and several additional pieces of music are missing, too.

The desire to recreate the graphics of the original arcade version ends up being something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the character sprites are sharper, better defined and better proportioned that the C64 version, and there’s plenty of attention to detail in the various tile-sets and bonus items – this is a seriously good-looking game.

On the flip side, Rainbow Islands is one game where attribute clash poses a genuine problem, predominantly with the textured background layers that feature in certain stages. Whilst not a problem in earlier sections of the game where the backgrounds tend to be solid blocks of colour, later levels – particularly Doh’s Island and Robot Island – become extremely difficult. It became really difficult to keep track of the player and enemy sprites when every thing is the same colour as the background itself and I’d find myself staring the screen with such intensity and focus that I started to go bog eyed, so much so that it reminded me of staring at those damned ‘Magic Eye’ pictures that became such a cult hit in the early ’90s! The fact that the enemies in these later levels tend to have more aggressive and unpredictable movement patterns didn’t help matters either.

Stars are great for clearing out baddies!

Another problem that became apparent whilst playing stems from the need to redesign the size of the levels and various art assets relative to the Spectrum’s screen resolution. With everything being to a smaller scale, there’s a much smaller margin for error when trying to get the correct coloured gems to spawn – the enemy corpse must land in absolutely the correct place, else you’ll get the wrong gem. This became even more pronounced in Toy Island, where most of the platforms are tiny cubes suspended in mid air and opportunities to kill enemies in the right place are slim. On a related note, at least half the enemies in world 4 would only ever flip to the right when killed. This made getting all the gems very difficult indeed and I thought I was going to have to start the game again if I wanted to get a perfect clear.

I also noticed that the game had a tendency to ‘forget’ about enemies when they drop out of view at the bottom of the screen. Enemies will occasionally vanish, only to reappear later on, and enemy corpses won’t always leave items behind unless you keep pace with the body as it descends.

It might sound as though I’m being overly negative and picking fault with the game, but isn’t that the point of reviews? I’m happy to say that none of these issues I’ve mentioned are things that I would consider in anyway to be deal-breakers – Rainbow Islands is a highly playable and faithful recreation of the arcade game and Graftgold should have been justifiable proud of the end result. Whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Spec-head, or a new comer to the system, this is definitely a title worth playing – highly recommended!